kim Kreis

Kim Kreis, originally from Dothan, Alabama has made her husband’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, home, since 1987. She and Bill have raised three children, two of which are now married and are enjoying their first three grandchildren.

Kim has a Master’s Degree in elementary education and greatly enjoyed teaching fourth grade for eight years before she married her husband Bill. Upon moving to Birmingham, Kim soon became cofounder and designer of Sweet Pea Designs fine stationery desiring to put her creative skills to work from home. Sweet Pea became a great success and thirty years later Kim and her partner are in the process of transitioning their business to the group who has managed it for many years.

Kim is a self-taught artist and put those skills to work in her classroom as well as Sweet Pea Designs.In 2016 Kim sensed God's direction to renew her painting from high school...since then she has been overwhelmed at the joy and peace that it brings to her life. She particularly enjoys abstract art which to her is simply painting with much joy and enthusiasm what she sees as she sees it.

Now, Kim finds herself drawn daily to paint, canvas, brushes and palette knives...she is strongly influenced by her garden, the beach, and nature...all with this desire: “Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.” Jim Elliot

For Kim the process of painting has become the next step in appreciating God's great creativity through nature and color. The more Kim paints the more she believes that God reveals to her an important truth... that using whatever talents she is given, great or small, are for His Glory and never for her own.

At this point in Kim’s painting career, she is concentrating on floral arrangements and a series that she refers to as "flower ladies". She has also commissioned a number of abstracts and is still working on a new series of colorful abstracts she hopes to introduce before the summer is out.

Kim’s flower ladies are discussed a good bit on her instagram account and came about because of the women’s marches...but for a different reason. She

has seen the desire for women to come together become, to her, more of a political cause and not a genuine cause of women caring for and supporting women.

Her desire is for women to come together as women of character and compassion. She expects these women to exemplify the strength and kindness that does not see their diversities as walls but welcomes the differences to further bond them together like a tapestry as children of God. Flower Ladies are the kind of women you meet that draw people together and you think to yourself “I want to know her, I want to be her friend...I want to be like HER!” The flowers simply are representative of her character so actually of course they are symbolic and invisible...but there is something different about these women...they are women of character, integrity, kindness...they may not accept all your beliefs, look like you, pray as you do,

dress as you do, but they accept YOU...

The customers Kim has had have commented repeatedly that her paintings make them happy. Kim’s goal is that her art would bring joy and happiness to any place they call home.